Inspired by P.D. Eastman's "Are You My Mother?" this creation depicts the scene where the baby bird encounters a steam shovel and declares that it must be his mother. The title of this build is taken from our family-favorite line, when the steam shovel answers the bird's declarations.

About this creation

The book spread that I worked from in developing the overall look of this build:

The young bird, who has wandered from his nest and is in search of his mother:

The back of the Snort, where the handle for raising and lowering the dipper is located:

A sequence of the dipper being raised:

The side of the Snort, where the handle for opening the tongue is located:

The tongue opens to allow the load to be dumped into a waiting truck or pile:

Quoting Ian Spacek
Fantastic work Mr. Merril! I was actually recently considering build this too (funny coincidence), but I doubt mine would've been of such high caliber. Masterfully designed!

Hi Ian, I would encourage you to try your hand at building something like this. It took a bit of tinkering with the placement and orientation of the gears and reels to get all of inner workings to fit together in a way that would let me keep the scale and exterior look I wanted while allowing the functionality that I felt the build needed.
I'm actually thinking this may be the first in a line of creations titled "Steam Shovels of Children's Literature" with Mary Anne from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel to be built next. Following that, I believe Thomas the Tank Engine has a friend steam shovel which will need to be built.